Ichitaku
by Supreme Tempest
Summary: Two years after his mother's death, Ichigo's friend, Tatsuki, gives him something that will change his life forever; the gift of manga. Four years later, when he meets a certain midget and gains Shinigami powers, he couldn't be more excited. Not that he'd ever let anybody know that. Now he just has to figure out how these powers work because, little does he know, he'll need them.


**THIS IS IMPORTANT, READ IT! **THIS IS IMPORTANT, READ IT! **THIS IS IMPORTANT, READ IT! **THIS IS IMPORTANT, READ IT!********

This little idea of mine is a particularly vicious little plot bunny that wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. As you may have guessed, this idea involves a Genre Savvy Ichigo; one who desires power, has been searching for power, and after getting power, is (internally) extremely eager to test its bounds. This will be an Ichigo that actively pursues the Shinigami lifestyle, who wants to learn new things about his power and what it can really do before he actually _needs_ to. An Ichigo that grills Rukia for basic Shinigami skills, has interest in Kidō, and actually pays attention to his Zanpakutō spirit(s). An Ichigo that I envision figuring out 'Old Man' Zangetsu's secret during his fight with his hollow and actually being able to reason him out of his reservations with a 'To protect me, you must let me protect them' style speech.

Why am I telling you this? Because I don't have the time, the plan, nor the drive to see this story through to completion. That's right, this is a 'challenge fic'. In that I am challenging you, if you should so feel like it, to take this story idea and run it through to completion. It is highly unlikely that I will be posting any more chapters of this story for at least four or five _years _once my life finally calms down.

With that out of the way, I'll just put down a disclaimer and let you have your merry way about my story.

Kubo Tite owns Bleach and all its characters and concepts. I do not.

~Story Start!~

Kurosaki Ichigo, age eleven, flopped down onto his bed with a sigh and reluctantly eyed the book he held loosely in his hand. It was a manga of all things; with a gaudy, overly colorful cover depicting some bratty-looking kid with a ridiculously-sized sword.

He would have thrown it away already had it come from anyone besides Tatsuki… Or his sisters, but that was irrelevant. They knew he didn't like this kind of thing. His best – only – friend would probably attack him if he couldn't give a decent description of what the stupid picture-book was about and while he didn't really object to spars, she would probably go out of her way to humiliate or embarrass him in some way. And that would be annoying.

So, against his better judgment, he cracked the book open and began to read.

~Time Skip~

Kurosaki Ichigo, age fifteen, shut his door behind him with a sigh, cutting off the lunatic ravings of his crazy-but-loving father. He walked over to his small desk, dropped his shoulder bag on top and flopped down into his chair.

A small bruise was forming on his forehead from where Kurosaki Isshin's 'Surprise Attack of Fatherly Love' had found its mark. His father wasn't abusive, far from it, but he _was_ crazy. At least it livened up the household a bit.

Besides, it wasn't like the authorities would believe that it was the patriarch of the Kurosaki's who instigated their conflicts given how worse off Isshin usually ended up than Ichigo. The man always seemed to recover quickly enough anyways.

He lazily unzipped his bag and pulled out his laptop, mouse and charger included, and the manga he'd bought before coming home that day.

The youngest Kurosaki male stared at the still-garish cover of the book and couldn't help but reminisce.

The day after he'd gotten that first book he'd been able to easily convince Tatsuki both that he had tried reading the manga and that he hadn't enjoyed it.

His lie had been discovered the next week when his fellow Karate student had managed to follow him to his secret place in the park where he went to relax, think, and, more recently, read through his manga.

She'd burst from the bushes with a loud, "A-Ha!" pointing down at a startled Ichigo reading the third volume of the series she'd tried to get him interested in.

After teasing him relentlessly for five minutes, she'd sat next to him and pulled the very same volume out of her backpack.

"_I'm a little further than you, looks like, but I'm looking forward to your reaction to page 60, so let's read it together!"_

Tatsuki likely didn't know that she'd picked the perfect manga to draw him in. It had been about a young boy who'd lost his parents to a horrible accident and had to fight his way through a hostile world to protect his little sister. It hit too close to home for him to _not _be interested.

After that he'd found many others that he liked and had begun to fill as much of his free time with reading them as he could.

Unlike a lot of people who read them though, he actually drew real-life motivation from the stories he read. He became enamored with the thought of becoming so strong that there would be nearly nothing he couldn't protect his family and friends from.

As such, he took up martial arts again. First, since he was already a black belt in his school of Shitō-ryū Karate, and the only improvement he could still make would come from experience and practice, he sought out other schools that differed from his which was a balanced hard/soft style. He managed to find a Kyokushin school focusing exclusively on hard techniques and a Wadō-ryū school focusing on primarily soft techniques.

He spent only a few months studying both at the same time before moving on. It was only partially thanks to his Karate experience that he was such a quick study. The following two years were spent learning Aikido and then Jujutsu while simultaneously also taking classes in Kendo. He briefly studied Iaido, but found that, though he was good at it, it didn't suit him. From there, since he couldn't find anything else that interested him that was actually in his area, he turned to the ultimate resource.

The internet.

After purchasing his own laptop, a cheap one he'd been saving up for anyways, he studied the philosophies and teachings of various disciplines that interested him, watched videos that documented sparring matches or specific kata, and just generally learned anything that he thought could help him grow in mind and body.

Through this he'd managed to incorporate bits and pieces of several different and sometimes foreign styles into his brand of fighting as well as learn a few different forms of meditation.

He'd also made a few new friends as well, starting with Yasutora 'Chad' Sado. He was a huge guy of Mexican descent who was incredibly strong and just as quiet.

_"So, you don't fight for yourself? Then how 'bout you guard my back."_

Then there was Asano Keigo, a crazy-stupid wimp of a womanizer. That meeting had been funny as all hell, not that he'd ever let anyone know.

_"Hey, is that issue ten? Could I borrow that for a couple days?"_

Turns out that his reputation as a dangerous punk had led the cowardly guy to think he'd never get his manga back. And, apparently, actually returning it had erased all of his 'bad guy' status in his mind. If Asano _had_ a mind.

That had gotten him introduced to Kojima Mizuiro, who was notorious as a ladies man.

_"If you're into younger women, I'm afraid I'll have to kill you."_

He had been assured, quite calmly, that Mizuiro's interest was solely in older women.

Ichigo had also tried to look into his weird ability to see ghosts, in a slight hope he might discover some superpower or something, but it had turned up nothing so far.

Until today, anyways.

It had started a fairly normal day, get up, counterattack his father's 'wakeup call', walk to school, beat up some punks along the way, sit through morning classes, beat up some more punks at lunch, sit through afternoon classes, walk home, beat up some more punks; all fairly standard.

Giant spirit monsters didn't tend to have a place on his list. Neither did midget-girls in black with swords that can jump twenty feet into the air. Who were also likely spirits.

So, apparently there were things with super spirit powers out there. Now he just needed to figure out how to get his own to work.

Maybe he could find another of those ghosts in black, beat them up, and force them to tell him how spirit powers worked for living people. Of course, if all of them had swords, that might be difficult.

He continued this thought process as he worked through the thankfully small amount of homework he had that night.

Later, after he'd gotten ready for sleep, Ichigo was laying on his bed, still thinking, when a black butterfly fluttered through is window, catching his attention. The butterfly was shortly followed by the midget swordswoman from earlier.

"What the hell? What are you doing breaking into my house!" he barked at her, trying to keep his volume down on behalf of his sisters who were already asleep even as he leapt to his feet.

She completely ignored him, though, and muttered to herself about something being close.

Well, he had thought about catching one of these guys for questioning on spirit stuff anyways, and here was his opportunity.

He took two steps forward and, in one smooth motion, kicked her feet out from under her, pulled her sheathed sword from its place hanging from her obi and threw it across the room, and pinned her to the floor.

The girl had let out a rather shrill shriek of surprise when her ability to stand had been taken from her, but now seemed to be somewhat dazed.

"Oi, you gonna pass out or something?"

His voice seemed to snap her out of it and her eyes – a rather interesting shade of purple, he noticed – immediately snapped up to his face, widening immediately.

"I-Impossible, you're just a human, you shouldn't be able to see me!"

Disbelief was clear in her voice. She really hadn't expected him to even be able to perceive her presence. He supposed that sort of negated the whole 'ignoring him thing,' but not her breaking and entering.

"Yeah, well, I _can_ see you, and I _saw_ you breaking into my house!"

He didn't have to try hard to make his voice appropriately accusing.

She seemed to struggle over what she was supposed to say in this sort of situation before she spoke back up, sounding somewhat unsure.

"I'm… sorry? I truly did not mean to disturb you. I was merely attempting to track my target and it led me in here."

It didn't take much thought to figure out what she was talking about, and the conclusion worried him.

"You mean another one of those big, masked monster things I saw you attack earlier? There's one in my house? I don't think it'd fit."

She looked rather stunned again, probably because he'd known about her activities earlier in the day, but spoke up quickly.

"I- yes, those. Hollows can come in all shapes and sizes though, but I didn't say it was _in_ your house, just somewhere nearby. I was merely pursuing it as is the duty of all Shinigami. If you'd let me up, I could explain it better."

He stared her in the eyes, seeing that she didn't have any hostile intentions, and was, in fact, still quite rattled by this whole experience. He'd let her up, but…

"I've got two little sisters sleeping down the hall, 'Shinigami,'" he hissed, using the name she seemed to have referred to those like her as. Death God? Really? "You do anything to put them in danger and I'll cut your arms off with your own damn sword."

Her eyes flicked down to her waist where her sword _should_ have been and then darted around 'till she found where it _was_. By the base of his desk.

She nodded slowly and he stood up from her, walking over to the desk in question, and leaning back against it as she slowly got up. He gestured her towards the foot of his bed and she sat, taking a moment to collect her thoughts before looking him in the eyes.

"Well, I… suppose I should start by introducing myself. My name is Kuchiki Rukia, and I am a Shinigami of the Goteijūsantai, an unseated member of the Jūsanbantai."

"I'm Kurosaki Ichigo," he interrupted briefly, before waving her to continue.

She did so with a slight smile, possibly due to his politeness in introducing himself.

"The Goteijūsantai is a military organization housed in the Seireitei, the capital of the Shiryō-kai. Its warriors, the Shinigami, are tasked with two things; ensuring that Plusses, normal human souls, are sent to the Shiryō-kai, and purifying hollows, human spirits that have lingered for too long or were overcome with negative emotions and become corrupted and lost their hearts."

His scowl deepened in thought at the rather significant information dump, which, mostly made sense except for one part.

"What do you mean when you say 'purify'?"

She smiled reassuringly at him as she answered.

"Our Zanpakutō," she gestured at the sheathed blade below him, "are imbued with the ability to purify the sins of a Hollow that it has committed since its corruption, allowing it to be judged solely on its actions during life. If it led a relatively sin-free life, its soul is immediately sent to Shiryō-kai, but if they were a murderer, or rapist, or some other such criminal, and are unrepentant, they are condemned to Jigoku."

Ichigo nodded, it made sense, really. He sighed before leaning down to pick up the sword before tossing it to her. She managed to only fumble with it a little before securing it in her hands and shooting him another startled look.

"Figured you should have that back, if it's so important. Think of it as thanks for clarifying so much, midget."

Not an instant after the M-word left his mouth, he found himself on the floor of his room, nursing a bruised cheek courtesy of a kick to the face. It was rather impressive, considering that Rukia only just came up to his chest in height.

"How dare you refer to me in such a disrespectful manner! You should refer to me as Kuchiki-sama from now on!"

He was back on his feet in an instant, as if nothing had ever happened, leaning over into her face.

"I just call 'em as I see 'em, and as I see it, you're a midget, midget! And you're the one that should be minding her manners! In case you forgot, _you're_ the one who broke into _my _house and got herself captured by _me_, so don't think I can't do it again."

She laughed, putting her hands on her hips and turning her nose up in the haughtiest manner he'd ever seen, which was saying a lot.

"Fool! As if a mere human could actually stand up to a Shinigami! The only reason you caught me before was because you ambushed me like a coward, and even then I could have easily incapacitated you!"

"That's it!" Ichigo growled taking a step forward.

"Bakudō no Ichi: Sai!"

Suddenly, his hands snapped together behind his back as if he'd been cuffed and his ankles performed a similar maneuver, leaving him to fall flat on his face.

There was a brief moment of silence – in which Rukia basked in her triumph – before Ichigo lifted his head off the floor, looking first back at his trapped hands, then at the culprit behind them.

"Spirit magic?"

"Kidō, actually," she replied, her bravado somewhat deflated at his lack of reaction, "Or, more specifically, Bakudō. The first and weakest spell, at that. Barely even enough to slow down a Hollow, but more than enough to restrain a human."

Ichigo huffed angrily, dragging himself to his knees with a slight struggle.

"Fine, I probably shouldn't have tried to attack you again. Sorry."

She smiled smugly at his admission.

"You're still a midget, though."

_CRASH!_

Her imminent explosion of feminine rage was interrupted as the impact shook the whole house, accompanied by an utterly unnatural roar that sent shivers down his spine. The two other screams set a white-hot terror burning into the pit of his stomach.

"The Hollow!" Rukia exclaimed, bolting out of the room with her hand already on the hilt of her blade.

He wasn't far behind, regardless of his restraints.

Ichigo landed next to her with a thud at the bottom of the stairs.

"What are you doing here? You shouldn't have followed me!"

He ignored her in favor of the horror scene before him.

His father, Isshin, was slumped against the wall, unconscious. Karin, his black-haired, tomboyish younger sister, was laying in the corner of the room, conscious but hardly lucid.

Yuzu, however was being held a meter and a half of the ground by what could only be a Hollow. The beast was about humanoid and five meters tall with plain gray skin, arms longer than its legs, and a blank white mask.

It wouldn't have been nearly as intimidating, despite its size, if it weren't for the awful feeling it was giving off.

He'd sorta been able to get a feel for Rukia's sprit power stuff, especially when she'd used the Kidō on him. It was kinda like a light chill in the air, but it at least felt kinda friendly.

The Hollow's, however, was incredibly ominous and dread-inspiring, like standing in the middle of a graveyard during the zombie apocalypse.

Of course, he only registered all this in the back of his mind, the rest being focused on something far more important.

His little sister was in danger.

With what could truly only be described as a roar of his own, Ichigo leapt to his feet, snapping the spirit magic binding like a particularly weak rope in the process, and took off towards his enemy, snatching up a chair to use as a weapon.

In retrospect, he really shouldn't have ignored Rukia's shouts for him to stop. She was the expert bad spirit slayer, after all.

But, you know, hindsight and 20/20 and all that.

The Hollow swatted him away with contemptuous ease, shattering the chair and cracking a few ribs in the process.

Then Rukia flashed by, blade drawn, and opened a deep cut on the monster's arm, forcing it to drop Karin near the side of the road.

Its roar of pain and anger echoed in his ears as Ichigo stood, snatching up a chair leg as a weapon. His sister wasn't out of danger yet.

He charged again, this time less recklessly but still disregarding the shouts of the Shinigami. This time he dodged the swipe of the Hollows giant fist and smashed his weapon into its kneecap. The chair leg shattered uselessly against its thick hide.

Ichigo cursed to himself and rolled between the thing's legs, dodging its second strike. Of course a freaking chair leg wouldn't do much, this thing was a spirit! You probably need to be or have something just as spirit-y to do damage to it. Well, he had some spirit-y-ness to him, so that just might work.

He drew back his fist, doing his best to concentrate some modicum of spirit power into his arm and fist while having absolutely no idea what he was doing, and punched the thing in the back of the knee.

Unfortunately, that just broke two of his fingers and got him kicked a good five meters down the street, fracturing a few more ribs and outright breaking one or two.

He rolled onto his back, but had no time to react any further as the Hollow was already on him, its gaping mouth dropping down to dig into his soul.

There was a flash of black and white, and a splash of red.

Rukia was there, standing over him with her back towards him, the Hollow's teeth sunk into her torso and her blade lodged in its jaw.

With a twist of her blade, its edge bit deeply into the Hollows face, forcing it to release her as it retreated to nurse its wound.

She, on the other hand, crumpled to the ground, much more severely injured. Only her sword, jammed point-first into the pavement, held her up on her knees.

He forced himself to his feet and went over to her kneeling down by her side.

"Are you alright?"

It was a stupid question. Of course she wasn't.

"No. I… don't think I'll be able to defeat it in this condition. It will devour us all."

There was a brief silence, in which only the pained growling of the Hollow could be heard as it rubbed at the wound on its face.

"Kurosaki," she began suddenly as she shifted her weight so that she could lean back against the base of a nearby street lamp, "do you want the power to defend your family – to keep us all alive?"

There was no hesitation.

"Yes."

She pointed her sword towards him.

"I will have to stab my zanpakutō through your heart. It will transfer a part of my Shinigami powers to you temporarily. You will have to defeat this Hollow quickly."

Ichigo stood back up and moved in front of her, taking the blade of the sword in his own to hands to steady it and pointing it directly at his heart.

"Not a problem. I'll kick its ass."

Rukia gave him a slight smile and a nod.

The Hollow had recovered and began to charge.

"Good luck."

She thrust forward as he pulled.

There was an explosion of light.

Ichigo stood, twenty meters further down the street, a massive sword, three quarters the length of his body, held loosely in a single hand as if it weighed nothing and dressed in the clothes of a Shinigami. Five meters behind him, the Hollow's right arm, the one that had held his sister mere minutes ago, fell to the ground and began to dissipate. Rukia lay in the same spot as before, but her clothing had been altered, now only a white yukata instead of her shihakushō.

And she was shocked.

She'd only meant to give the human half of her power, but the instant her sword had pierced him, he'd drained it all right out of her, leaving her as little more than a regular plus.

Ichigo turned to face the Hollow once again, at about the same time it turned to face him, and looked down at his blade.

"Huh, you're a little big, aren't you?"

He turned his scowl back upon the Hollow as it began to charge.

"And _you're_ a little stupid."

It was over in one blow, Ichigo leapt forward and jumped up, cleaving the corrupted soul in two with a single slice.

He landed behind it as it began to dissipate, its soul and the souls of all those it had consumed now free to move on to whatever afterlife awaited them, and just kept walking until he dropped to a knee right in front of Rukia.

"You gonna be okay?"

She nodded shakily.

"Y-Yeah."

His scowl inverted itself into a smirk.

"Good, 'cuz I think I'm about to pass out."

Ichigo fell face-first to the ground with a thud.

Rukia blinked owlishly down at him and idly wondered what could possibly happen next.

She heard the clack of wooden geta approaching.

~End~


End file.
